Parties

Planning a Party

Troy eventually gets a bit older and is ready to age up. The Schultzes still want to expand their social network as well, so they’re going to kill two birds with one stone: it’s time for a party!

Parties are paragons of chaos, just because so many people can become involved. If you plan accordingly, it can be organized chaos at least. At minimum, you better have plenty of food around, as well as a decent-sized bathroom to accommodate several guests having the urge at once. Also advised is the $300 buffet table, which allows you to essentially create food instantly, sparing your Sims from having to cook. Bars are useful also for adult parties, allowing the guests to loosen up and possibly have more fun.

Seth and Holly have none of these, of course, but they’re going to give a party a shot anyway. Once day breaks, they buy a birthday cake in Buy Mode and place it on the kitchen counter. Then, Seth goes to the phone and uses the Throw Party command. He could also use the Throw Party At… command, which would have the party off-site. That’s a good option for larger parties if your house is small, though it’s not necessary right now.

Once Seth uses the Throw Party command, the Party Planner menu pops up. First, you select the type of party you’re going to have. “House Party” is the default, standard type. In this case, Seth is choosing birthday party. Note that the party type dropdown box is contextual, so if no one on your lot can have a birthday party, the option won’t even be there.

Just below the party type selection is the party start time, which you can type in. Some people don’t like having parties in the middle of the night, so you’ll need to keep that in mind. Below that is the dress code, in case you have a specific idea in mind. Wedding parties or parties in fancy-pants houses probably should be formal attire, whereas parties held at pools or ocean lots should be swimwear. Seth chooses a 12-noon start time and casual attire for this one.

The next part of the party planning menu is the possible guests you can invite. Whoever is making the call can invite whoever they want, provided someone in the house knows them. Guests are not guaranteed to show up, however. In fact, they will often refuse to show up if they don’t like any of the hosts. Seth invites all his fellow soldiers, who are all considered friends to him. (Thank goodness for the Hang Out with Soldiers work strategy!) Seth is also going to try inviting his boss, Erin, but it’s very doubtful she’ll show up. Can’t hurt to try though.

Just to clarify one thing about guests: the guest’s decision whether to attend the party is based on their highest relationship with a member of the hosting family. So in this case, Seth is inviting Molly French to the party. In previous Sims games, Molly would likely refuse because she and Seth barely know each other. However, because Molly is friends with Holly, Molly will probably show up anyway even though Seth is making the party. In this way, it doesn’t matter who in the family actually plans the party: invite everyone’s friends, and they should all show up!

Throwing a Party

Seth and Holly use the few hours they have before the party starts to tidy up the house. Seth is planning on ordering a pizza to save Holly time and effort with cooking, but they still have breakfast and feed the baby.

At 11:00am, the first guests show up. Most guests show up an hour early, usually based on their relationship with the hosts. Well, only a few do: Erin surprisingly does show up, along with another of his fellow soldiers. By noon, all the guests have shown up, many of them bringing food for the whole party! Excellent!

Eventually, it’s time to do the candles thing. Holly puts the cake on the table, then selects it and uses the Blow Candles command. Up pops a list of every Sim that’s on the lot, and you can choose anyone to age up, regardless of how close they are to actually doing so. Note that this allows you to age up Sims even if you’ve disabled aging in the options menu.

Holly selects Troy to blow out the candles, leading to a special animation, and Troy gets a little older! The rest of the party goes swimmingly, and it starts to break up about three hours after it got started. It would have gone longer if the guests had had a better time, but a crying stinky toddler kinda ruined things. Still, as the guests leave, they tell Seth and Holly that they had a good time, so that’s a win in my book.

Once they all leave, Seth is given a little grade on the party. Turns out this one was rated a “modest success,” which frankly is pretty much as good as they could have gotten considering how little they had for their guests. With a bit more work on their objects, they could easily be the life of the neighborhood!